Hasta La Gadget!

We didn’t have to wait long to find out what Samsung would do with the GT-B5330 we saw just a day ago: meet the much more elegantly-titled Galaxy Chat. The finished product is Samsung’s first phone outside of the Galaxy S III to carry the Nature UX layer, but takes it in a very message-happy direction with a QWERTY keyboard, a bundled copy of Quick Office and a dedicated key for ChatON that reminds us of the BlackBerry Curve 9320’s BBM shortcut. Not that you’d confuse the two otherwise, as the Galaxy Chat’s 3-inch, 480 x 320 touchscreen and 4GB of built-in storage (plus a microSD slot) are decided steps up. About our only letdowns relative to the category are the 2-megapixel, flashless camera at the back and the difficulty some will have in getting their hands on Samsung’s first keyboard-touting Android 4.0 phone. Unlike the global blitz we saw with the Galaxy S III, the Chat is launching in Spain this month and will exclude some large swaths of the Earth when it goes worldwide later on, leaving out Africa, North America and Russia.

Samsung Galaxy Chat brings Nature UX to the messaging crowd originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew its arrival was imminent, and it looks like the time to shine for Huawei’s Emotion UI is right about now — well, at least in areas near the Great Wall. To celebrate its official debut, the company’s launched a new website where it goes into nearly every detail about its novel Android skin, touting fresh features such as a voice assistant, smart contact finder, customizable fonts, smart triggers and an all-new chat application that’s very reminiscent of Cupertino’s iMessage or Samsung’s ChatOn. Unfortunately, the Emotion UI overlay is only available to Huawei devices — that are running Ice Cream Sandwich — in China, but word has it coming to the US of A and Europe once the outfit’s upcoming Ascend D Quad finally hits the shelves.

Update: As it turns out, our dear friends from Engadget Chinese have pointed out that Huawei’s website is listing the updates as “coming soon” and “ROM developing,” meaning the Emotion UI isn’t quite making its way to devices just yet.

Huawei’s Emotion UI for Ice Cream Sandwich devices starts rolling out in China originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last time we saw Skytex, it was serving up a warm slice of Windows 7 on its tablets. Now, it’s back with a pair of Androids, one under each arm. The Skypad Protos ($279) is 9.7 inches of Ice Cream Sandwich, while the Skypad Gemini ($179) measures in at just 7. Both slates run on 1.2GHz Cortex A8 silicon, shacked-up with a Mali 400 GPU. Other internals include 8GB storage, and 1GB or RAM, HDMI and a microSD card slot for expansion (up to 32GB). The larger Protos has an IPS screen, and a pair of cameras (5- and 2-megapixels) while the smaller Gemini just has the one (2-megapixel). It’s not all about what’s inside those box these days, as both also come with 5GB of cloud storage, showing these slates know what’s on trend right now. With competition getting intense at the cheaper end of the scale, though, is there enough to get your credit card out when they start shipping this month?

Continue reading Skytex announces Gemini and Protos: ICS tablets that sound like X-Men

Skytex announces Gemini and Protos: ICS tablets that sound like X-Men originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If all those bells and whistles packed inside that famed Galaxy S III are a wee bit much for you, then perhaps you might be interested in this Sammy-branded GT-B5330 and all of its relatively modest qualities. For starters, the device is bound to be a delight to those who love the feel of physical QWERTY keys, with Sammy Hub also reporting that it’s sporting an unpretentious QVGA, 320 x 240 screen and a bearable 850MHz processor — all while being powered by a Samsung flavor of Ice Cream Sandwich. As is usually the case with these early appearances, though, mum’s the word on when this GT-B5330 will make its official debut. That said, something tells us this won’t be the last time we’ll be seeing this guy show off its typing attributes.

Samsung’s GT-B5330 shows up in leaked photos, flaunts its QWERTY traits originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just as last week’s leaked documents suggested, the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE will be available on Verizon starting July 5th. The carrier made the official announcement today, and you’ll be able to nab the handset this Thursday for $150 on contract — after a $50 mail-in rebate. To jog your memory, the Incredible 4G LTE packs a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon CPU and runs Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC’s Sense 4 UI on a 4-inch qHD display. There’s also Beats Audio on board, along with Android Beam technology for sharing info by tapping two phones together. Head past the break for the full press info.

Continue reading Confirmed: HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE coming to Verizon July 5th for $150

Confirmed: HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE coming to Verizon July 5th for $150 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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